Exploring Social Work professionals’ Experiences of the Mindfulness-Based Social Work and Self-Care Programme: A Focus Group Study

ABSTRACT

The evidence for the potential of mindfulness-based programmes to support improved social work practice and self-care is growing. The aim of this focus group study was to explore social workers’ (n = 13) experiences of the Mindfulness-based Social Work and Self-care programme (MBSWSC). Thematic analysis highlighted two superordinate themes: benefits to direct social work practice and coping with the social work role. Four subordinate themes highlighted the different social work practice components that were enhanced through MBSWSC participation: social work assessment, service user engagement and team working, working to social work values, and social work skills. Three subordinate themes identified improvements in individual processes which supported enhanced stress coping: moving from avoidant to approach coping, improved boundaries, increased emotional awareness and reduced negative thinking. Our findings indicate that the MBSWSC programme can have a multi-faceted positive effect on social work practice, and on social work professional’s capacity to cope with their role.

KEYWORDS:

• Coping
• self-care
• social work practice
• mindfulness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Research Ethics Committee, School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queen’s University Belfast (REF_167_2122).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office of Social Services, within the Department of Health, Northern Ireland